Dear Juliet,

First day of June. Wow. That was fast wasn't it? I'm telling you right now. this life is going to pass us by so fucking fast its going to be really really sad and shocking. Hang on cause we need to turn it on over-drive to make the absolute most of it.

I am in the middle of so many things right now. Totally insane. Getting ready for this tour. Film crew coming to house for three days to film this 30 minute documentary. Three days in the life of me and the boys. ‘Where he is now.’ ladies man, mans man, man about town, to borrow a phrase. Did you see Down with love yet? One of my favorites. She's going to try to get to the heart of the matter, focus on the songs and the songwriting. A cool project. I picture it more like a docudrama. Want it to be deep and surreal with no story line... and of course she is going to want it very literal and linear...like all documentaries. But I will thwart her at every moment, refuse to be filmed unless I am in the bathtub or something... And we’re packing everything I own up and putting it into storage because I sold my house. Have no place to live yet. Looking at places temp here while trying to find a place to buy in New York. With housing ridiculously high in New York. Still working every night on editing the novel. Trying to get the new single from sleep with you released here in the states, get the new album released here for a summer date, start recording the rough tracks of two more future albums before we leave. Trying to coordinate publicity, radio promo, retail store promo, posters, postcards, T-shirts, for Europe etc etc... And we leave for a two month tour abroad in less than four weeks. amongst all this I'm still just trying to be me, you know, writing songs, and rehearsing with the band and all that. My mind feels crazy by 11 pm. I lie in bed unable to sleep. Tossing and turning. But you know. Its cool. Could be worse. This is an amazing life. Just hectic.  [Might use this in the diaries. good summary really. No need to type it twice now is there... hope you don't mind my recent foray into reality TV... with you playing a starring role as of late. Just all part of the big picture.]

Anyway, at the salon today getting the old hair in shape, studying your letter with a fine tooth comb while the t-shirt lady was showing me samples of all the latest and greatest in  t-shirt trends, making huge circles all over your writing whenever I found important points. Hope you don't mind me writing on you like that. all the while trying to sit perfectly still for the stylist. How did this madness begin?

As I said we are packing up everything I own, material-wise that is, in my house to throw it into storage. And one of those things is the infamous 2nd Juliet letter. The one that caused oh so much fuss around these parts a few weeks back. needed to give myself some time to digest it. but I couldn’t put it away. just left it there on the floor for weeks. important stuff in there. intelligent life in the universe after all and that letter was the proof of that. so before I pack and leave I thought I would respond a bit since we speak infrequently. Your life is even more hectic from what I can gather.

I want to turn the wit-machine off for the remainder of this and really speak from my heart; which I so rarely do except in song. I will try. just try to respond to your own letters.

Yes I too was thrilled about our dear friend being a gay rights activist. What a God. I wonder if you ever communicated with him after I sent you his email. 

Yes I too danced around reading your letters as well. but as you know I was dancing in the bathtub.... but yes they meant very much to me as well. kindred souls. Thank God. I expected nothing less. Just took us twenty five years to get here. and it makes me very happy that you enjoy our reconnection. Makes me happy. we are learning a lot. It is like talking to God. getting some answers. Some confirmation. Some affirmation from another. it feels great.


So you had/have feather experiences? Crazy. wow. I thought I was the only freak that way. thinking he's talking to angels. But I love it so much.

Now when you say you dance your ass off, do you mean that you literally dance, like a deadhead kind of dance, which is what I imagine, or is this just figurative? In your mind... I mean, are you guys like full on dead heads doing the dance type of hippies? Or more retired these days. dumb question I know. you live in Oregon. that's where all the hippies live, yes. wow. Well I can’t wait to come out there and hang with you guys and catch the smell of it all. it would be very nice for a change.

Are you happy where you are? doing what you are doing? What do you see for your future? I am dying to know. share with me young Jedi. You asked me the same question. I will tell you. a bit. What I know. I see myself just growing bigger and bigger. You know. making better and better music. bigger stages. More fans. More resources. More money. more cars. More stuff and all that. more access as you say. but also more fulfillment. More of that yummy I have done it feeling. More helping people out. really want to feel like I have contributed to us. to the earth. To humanity more than the earth actually. want to feel safe in that. in that I did my best to make things better. Along with my lust to create art that is the second most nagging thing in me, this thirst to help things get better for all of us. tugs at me all the time. more writing. more and more books. Getting involved in more and more arts and entertainment. Find my wife. Get married while laughing our asses off because neither of us believes in it. but we do it anyway. Have kids. Settle down. Become president. Get knighted. The usual stuff...

Until I meet my wife I am on a quest to make love with at least one woman from every civilized country in the world at least once. Maybe even a few uncivilized ones as well. just for fun. getting close to it now. I think its an admirable goal. For a single man at least. I bet I wouldn’t be the first. Not a very novel idea I know. but the best I can muster in the way of women at the moment. I have such a love and fascination for them all. I don't really discriminate about anything. All shapes and sizes and colors. I love them all. so I'm sure I'm the perfect man for the job. But of course I would give it all up just to look into HER eyes finally. I feel her often. Think of her. keeps me sane. Keeps me balanced. Keeps me honest. I know she would think I was an absolute lunatic in my strange adventures and yet somehow understand... maybe that's part of it. a big part of it. The understanding part.

So what about you? will you wander more? wander from man to man? Are you hitched forever? unable to commit entirely but unable to let go? like all geniuses.... the curse. The knowing. That there is more. That there is no black and white. No real end of the rainbow...

But you know, I can type that, but I still hold faith. funny. You told me when we were 20 that I was in love with love. I wondered how you could tell that from a seventh grader.... I used to cringe at the thought of that comment of yours. But its true. But more than that. I believe in it. truly believe in it. Search for it from sea to sea. In every city. for a heart as deep and pure and caring and wise.

But until that moment comes I will enjoy being this. I never had the opportunity to enjoy the fruits of single manhood. I was always with someone in my 20’s. could never let go. now it seems easy. Fun. just to be me. to honor that. to explore that. I love it. love being me. for the first time ever in this life. three years now. single. Never thought I could enjoy it. always afraid of it. now I love it. discovered me. that is a great gift to give yourself.

Chris rock said once, single and lonely or married and bored. that's your choice. But as funny as that was, I don't subscribe to it. I loved being with Cleopatra. Was never bored. and I love being single. We have our relationship with God. and with our families. So you don't have to be lonely.

Why do you think that you are still single? That you as you say don't know if you believe in marriage??? I wonder why?

You mention the difficulty of having a child. Is it still difficult? Or is it easier now that you have someone else in your life?

You mention my family and me being sharp and glassy and pointed.... cannot imagine what I was like as a child from the outside. Poor little me at that age. Yes. it was not easy. I was in complete resistance to who I was and where I came from till I was about 25. till the great transformation so to speak. That was the beginning of it. till then, I was just confused and resistant. My family life sucked. My childhood sucked. Truth be told. Just wasn't easy. So you saw that. I did my best to mask it and in so doing revealed it quite readily. Like you I buried myself in things to escape the madness. Music and poetry and literature and religion and art and all of that. wasn't into sports like you were. I'm cool now. but it wasn't easy to get here. you mention the warriors we have left behind. Yes. did you see lord of the rings? Troy? Love that stuff. good archetypes for us all.

I witnessed you escaping into sports and the water as you say. Loved that about you. admired it. you were always so independent. I admired it. modeled it. had your own agenda. Thought it was grand. You seemed so wise and mature for our age. How do you feel now?

Do I regret any of it you ask? Sure. Some of it. I wish I didn't spend so many years on drugs as a teenager and a young adult. I glorify it now of course. just to make it part of the epic saga of my life. but regret... sure. I could have accomplished more if I would have quit at age 20 instead of age 25. I could have come out faster. Bloomed faster. But I knew no other way at that age to escape what I was running away from. running away from the past. Till I realized that we didn't need to run away from the past but just simply need to honor it and let it go. took me a while to get to that. I feel lucky that I came away alive and intact. Many of our dear friends are still in that today. so I feel lucky to have gotten out so quickly really. Drugs are great eye openers and very much important to our evolution to whole beings. But they are no way to live. just a good sampling is all it takes....

You ask if I meet people I have definitely been friends with before in past lives... I don't know. Don’t know enough about any of it. a few years ago I would have given you a different answer. I've studied the subjects voraciously for years and still have no answers. But now I just like acknowledging what I do know for sure. I know that I love the friends I have. And the new ones I make here and there. Don’t know about past lives. I want to. I want to believe. I love entertaining the idea in daydreams... don't mind the reaching for it in our consciousness.... would hope that one day we will know and understand it all. but for now I am comfortable exploring it without making any final decisions.

Aren't we creating it all in the here now anyway? I mean, isn't it all up to us? past lives and the after life and all that.... I mean, my hearts belief is that it truly is up to us. so yes I would love to believe that this is one brief lifetime in a series of many. If I had to give my final answer in order to win one million dollars I would choose that one.

Certain people just strike us the minute we meet them don't they? Many of my friends I have now were that way. just went right up and started talking. much the same way I wrote to you after fifteen years of silence. Just felt it. knew it. went with it. the name Juliet meant a lot to me. even back then. Why? don't know. past life/lives? Not sure. But I get a lot out of it now. reading your words. knowing you are out there. doing your thing. feels important. So I like to acknowledge it. I guess that's the answer. How lucky we are to have reconnected and been so well received on both ends. Life is good in that.

And you? what do you do when encountering new old friends?

One more thing. Sometimes to me, when it all slows down.... I feel as though we are just meeting again after many many times of meeting the same people.... our dreams indicate that don't they? That it is a cycle of lives somehow.... a cycle of similar events. Recorded many times over... how lucky we all are to be alive. To be human. I envy the angels who I am sure envy us...

The fame thing you ask about. I'm not that famous yet. yes there are lots of people. Thousands of them. Tens of thousands of them. But I'm alright with it. I'm so damn social. My grandfather always used to call me the social butterfly. He meant it in a bad way. as an insult. but I always knew it was a good thing. I do love people. it’s a passion of mine. People. and relationships. In all their many shapes and forms. I was raised in a northern Italian family. You lived in Florence for a year so you know what they are like. So closed up and private. So my social tendencies were very much frowned upon and berated. But somehow I persisted to remain as I was in my heart of hearts.

In answer to your question, my problem has never been with the crowds of people. my problem with this lifestyle has always been the traveling. I love to travel. But boy do I hate traveling. I am haunted by a hereditary motion sickness disease that I have come close to shaking but still persists now and then. In Italy I threw up in a lady’s car on the way home from dinner in the middle of nowhere. Seriously. more like just outside the car... but still. its not fun. a curse. A funny joke God plays on me given my occupation. He laughs and I throw up. LOL. So for me that's the hardest part of it. that and the long nights. Never getting to sleep on the road till early morning. Crazy life. but there is pure poetry in doing what you love regardless of the costs...

And sometimes I worry about losing relationships. How do you tell a girl you love her and then say goodbye? I have to go for a few months. I will see you soon. hasn’t been easy. But again. I am very understanding of this. I believe in a higher power, in a higher purpose. In a master plan so to speak. So I know that it is what it is and it is how it shall be. and luckily we have the power to change that at our will. so when the time is right I would love to meet a girl who says to me I love you now I’M leaving. That would be great. Two cross continental lovers bound for an eternity but respectful of their individual lives. God you are right. I am in love with love. A hopeless romantic.

As far as the impermeable membrane that protects me.... after Avatar it went away. I am very open... somehow. And its o.k. I am very free and open with other people. know when to just be cool and be on the surface. But I feel and I shudder to type this but I feel that it is part of who I am and who I am meant to be to others. open and unconditional and loving and caring and social. I still make time for myself and for my thing. I'm no mother Theresa. That's for sure. I'm still a rather isolated creature in my own way. Completely self obsessed and absorbed. But that's part of what I do too. you have no choice if you are working twenty four hours a day, which you are if you are an artist. That’s your gift. That's your mission. Do the work. So I bounce back and forth in it.

And you. I envy the lifestyle. I long for it. I hunger for it. your stories of trees and flowers and vegetables and green grass and aligned planets and jumping and dancing around with your loved ones.... I cannot wait for that day. when I can have more time for that. would love to have a place in the country. for all of that. to have a retreat like that. I just can’t wait. Kids and cows and fields of grass to make love in. Just can’t wait. I think we can have both. that's the ideal.


O.k. on with our story. Its two nights later now. I am about midway through answering your letter. I am staring at the most incredible full moon rising over the Atlantic Ocean while standing on a balcony on the twentieth floor of an ocean front hotel this evening. Thought of you; how much you would have loved it and appreciated it. the moon was HUGE and glowing up the entire ocean and sky. It was beautiful. These days I am so much more impressed and relaxed by a cityscape or skyline than I am by anything in nature. Or a mass of people on a city street. These are the things that set my heart beating faster. Especially during the summer months. Winter nature scenes intoxicate me much more. Just where I'm at these days.

But I understand your love of nature and appreciate it. We need this. and I believe that once I get to a larger city (as Miami isn't enough) then I will love nature even more... a rising moon over the Atlantic is an easy thing to take for granted in South Florida. You know for years I was called nature boy. I was there. obsessed with it. till the capitalist bug got into me. Stu and I would go into the woods for hours everyday in the college days just to explore. Endless discoveries... we would get so high and just lay there in big piles of leaves and talk about our dreams... if you go to our website and then to the MP3 page, then click on the spec broken album you can hear the soundtrack to those days, a song called Nature Boy. Good times.

On with the letter. So you and The Green Wizard weren't soulmates when you wrote this letter to me. but I assume that you are getting closer and closer to that as the months pass. Perhaps discovering the subtle shades that soulmates can take on. Your love does seem gentle and pure and joyful. And it makes me smile when you tell me your stories of the two of you. whispering “kissing” before you fall asleep. Wow Jules. What a way with words you have. re-enacting the battle scenes from Troy together out in public. How my heart longs to meet my equal... but until then I take refuge in all the beautiful love stories I hear from all of my friends out there. my days of compromised love or half love or almost there love or semi-settled love are behind me now. in it for the big catch now. the big one. the one that can barely stay on the hook. The holy cow oh my God I can’t believe this is happening this is it kind of love. I hope you have found that. and if not then I hope you create it with this wonderful man you speak so warmly about.

So Juliet telling Fishy how her main exploration has been in the arena of romance all these years. wow. Ironic. So you never know. would love to hear your stories. What a big life you have lived already. Both of us. wonderful that we found one another to share. I get a lot out of it because when you speak it is so honest and from the heart that it eases me. comforts me. intelligent life out there in the universe I had said.

Which means what? Intelligence? Nah.... stopped believing in that, in an objective sense, years ago. What we mean by that is “someone who I can relate to and who can relate to me. An aligned companion. Someone who understands...”

So Athena chose the Green Wizard. I can imagine. They look perfect together. Tell me how it played out. they do look very happy together. a heart warming picture of the two of them cuddling. Beautiful... yes. and the image of the three of you eating homemade organic soup. yum! What a picture! Oh Juliet how it reminds me of when Cleo and I were together. the simple things in life. my life has gotten so big and insane the last few years. I long for those simple moments!!!

Bas and I joke about this sometimes, about how crazy it is to be a guy and not have a girl around. Because its true, without girls we would just be totally crazy. they really balance everything out. without a girl you could easily expect to walk in and see one of us eating popcorn out of a bag that's been sitting on the floor for three days and wiping his mouth with an old sock that was lying around. There was a time recently when one night I saw a rat scurry across the floor from one room to another. I exclaimed to Bas without getting up from my chair, ‘hey man I think I just saw a rat run across the room....’ His answer: ‘oh yeah, he's lived here for a few weeks. I see him now and then.’ This is the life of man without woman. Gross but true. Thank God for women. That's all I can say.

I envy my wife. I'll put it that way. because when I meet her she is going to be so spoiled and taken care of and worshipped... “Fishy can you please stop kissing my feet?!” Forget about it. This is the way it was with Cleopatra. Just totally worshipped her. very hard to find someone that you just totally adore completely and entirely in a one hundred percent honest fashion. I know you know this, or else you would be married by now.

Private here Juliet for a moment... Just between you and me in the privacy of these little letters, in the darkness of our secret oneness that we share when we communicate... so let me ask you... Juliet, have you ever been in love completely? Just totally, like you know it for sure one hundred percent??? That kind of love? It is wonderful isn't it? isn't it the best of everything? I am so happy now being able to have this freedom to go crazy and do whatever I want to as a guy. these will be stories I will cherish forever, but in all honesty, it is nothing compared to the feeling of that bond we share when we are in love with another person. things really take off in that.... something to it... something magical....


But what about you? are your adventures in the arena of love and romance over? Will it be the end all be all for you? you asked me if I feel the biological clock ticking now. yes. very much so. Waiting for it. and you? are you longing to settle down for good. to nest. To grow old together? to pack in the old notches on the bedpost collection? Theoretically speaking. I'm sure you weren't collecting literal notches like we men folk as much as ‘minds you could connect with in brief moments in time for one reason or another.’ I know you. Always searching for something more. for the next big find.... have you found it? or are you comfortably.... hhmmm.... comfortable... for the time being... if it is not my business please forgive me for asking.

I believe that for people like us, the seekers, wanderers, explorers, warriors, challengers, adventurers of the world, that it isn't an easy task. To settle down with one forever. but I believe that it is possible. Especially when you wait as long as we have waited.... I do believe this. I too share your resistance to divorce or separation after the final commitment. But perhaps this idealism in us is just something holding us back from going for it and experiencing real love. But alas, as you say, when I look into their eyes and see past present and future and see God staring back at me... I will hold that image until I find it. it created an instant and perfect archetype for me. thank you for that. I want to have that. and as a friend I want you to have that. it was a brilliant image.

And yes, to answer your question... I have a clear vision of our future, but yes, I also know to keep it open. Who knows? that's part of the excitement. As long as she has grace, class, intelligence, style, charm, wit, wisdom, progressiveness, and kindness enough to not make me feel as though I am compromising, but rather inspiring me to the same, then I am open to anyone or anything. She can be a Russian meter maid for all I care.... [you know, even beyond all that, beyond the descriptive adjectives... why not just let her be who she is... that feels better.]

How psychic am I... not so psychic I guess. Just get these visions now and then. Literal visions combined with thoughts... predictive. [as an example, in 1992 I wrote in my journal that some whacks from the middle east were going to bomb our financial district of New York City. ten years before it happened. I don't know how I knew that. I just did. and made note of it. crazy.] Where I know I am seeing the future. Not in control of the visions yet. Just watch them come into my minds eye sometimes. Getting better at distinguishing these real visions from our emotional desires or fears. Which are completely different matters. Psychic visions are very real. They are very clear. like your visions and dreams of Athena before she was born.

Parenthood: “I will be guiding hereness for her,” you said. Again, wow. I got chills when I read it. Can you clone yourself and raise my children as well? Brilliant.

Can’t wait for you to discover Avatar. ‘Living deliberately’ is right up there with ‘Be here now’ for tie for best book ever penned by man so far... have you read be here now?

Parenthood still frightens me more than it excites me to answer your question. Probably because I am still so busy cultivating childishness myself. I am sure when the time is right I will grow into it just perfectly. As you did.


Yes we are those seventh graders still Jules. You know, I bet, and its just a hunch, but please call me on it in a few decades, that when we are in our sixties we will still feel like those seventh graders way back when.... my mom is sixty now, and she's still that same little girl. Just a bit happier and wiser and jollier. My mom is a real goddess and little girl perfectly combined into one incredible being. You would LOVE her. A real new-ager...


On death: a whole other conversation. Like I said though, we’ll know when we know. for now we don't know. but the possibilities do seem endless. Sure have been a lot of great movies and novels written about it. to keep us busy till we get there. fun stuff.

I'll tell you this. when someone is alive, they are alive. And when they are dead, they are dead. In the mainstream there doesn’t seem to be much in between. I think of my dead grandparents a lot. And talk to them often. As if they were still alive. But honestly, they seem a million miles away at this point. Doesn’t everyone once they pass on?
Who are we if we are not alive here on earth? That is the immortal question. One day this whole thing is just going to explode. All the information about death and what's really happening is going to come shooting into consciousness when we are ready. already is out there if you study it. Raymond moody, and John Edwards, and Ruth Montgomery and Edgar Cayce and so many others have already told us so much... I tend to believe that it is up to us. sounds simple I know, but I believe that if you hold a belief in reincarnation then that is what you will experience; if you hold a belief in heaven after life on earth, then that is what you will experience. Etc... depends on who you were and what you believed while on earth.

Carl Sagan was a devout atheist, so one would assume that he passed on and never met God because he didn't believe in God... my mom on the other hand is going to be surrounded by Jesus, Mary, angels, saints, and God knows what else... due to her beliefs. She’s almost a fanatic... so if there is any sense to this system, then she should be able to experience in death exactly what she is creating death to be like in her mind now while she is on earth... we live in a very unjust world. we only tell ourselves that there is justice around us because we have no choice in it. we’d go crazy if we didn't. Injustice all around us. surrounds us. We were born here. here we are. we didn't even have a choice in that. So the least we could hope for is that once we die we will get a little piece of what we are hoping for. [I know, I am succumbing to the same thinking that is responsible for the invention of the religions... the old ‘this sucks, its gotta get better after this...’ LOL]

If the whole damn thing, all of it, even the universe itself, is within, and coming from, consciousness, then this makes sense. If its not, and it exists outside of us, some sort of a separate system all to itself that we are just inside of.... a small part of.... with no operating logic at play, no actual control over, as some skeptics would have you believe, then boy are we in for some rude awakenings...

Can you imagine, if just for a moment... if all of this is bs? All of it. Just total nonsense... and after our heart stops beating, and our brain shuts down... if we truly and completely just turn off? Stop thinking. Stop feeling. Stop seeing images in our minds... can you imagine? An insane idea.... I don't know if it is possible for a person to imagine their own mortality. But its fascinating to try. Everything ceases to exist because we the perceiver of everything ceases to exist... and yet, nothing ceases to exist. Everything is still there. its just we who ceases to exist. Gives me goose bumps. I love it. either way I love it. check with me in forty years and I'm sure I'll be changing my tune.

Either way, I'm happy with this. With all of it. as short as life has been and seems it will be, it kind of seems long too. Doesn’t it? I mean, we've been very lucky to make it this far. its been good. so even if all the talk about after-life is just wishful thinking and everything just turns off with our brainwaves.... that's o.k. with me. this is and has been an amazing adventure. [I think that's why I'm such a voracious writer though... because I want to get as much of it down as I can while I'm still here. subconscious resistance to my own mortality one would presume... why does anyone write?]

O.k. so we have reached the sex part of your letter.... your last 2 pages. What a journey your letter was. I must say, a real challenge to comprehend the ideas behind the scribbles, but well worth it. The fetish scene I found very exhilarating. I am as fascinated by it as I am disgusted by it. it has its high points and low points like everything... you walk into a room and on one couch there is a naked guy masturbating, a blindfolded woman is being hung from some crazy apparatus while a masked man whips her, another woman is bent over a leather saw horse while various people lovingly whip her and pour hot melted wax on her butt. Everywhere you look you see people exploring this side of themselves. People in every corner making out or having sex in some crazy way. naked dances everywhere. I've seen huge orgies of people, masses of bodies pile on top of one another all connected physically in some way, even if it is just a guy on the end sucking the toes of one of the girls who is getting it from all directions... guys walking around in diapers sucking their thumbs... and me just sitting there with a drink taking it all in... scribbling notes like a madman while everyone is doing their thing... yes it is a crazy thing... but its there. you know. what else can you say? Its there. it exists. its in our consciousness. Its a reality. The first time I went to one I smiled like a little kid. I just thought wow. So here it is. Babylon. Right in our own backyard. I was glad that it existed. I fear that without it, many people wouldn’t know what to do with themselves. So I think it is a good thing that we live in a country that allows this. I wish I could say that somehow it helps minimize violence in our society... but unfortunately we live in the most violent society on the earth.. so who knows. but I still say it’s a good thing. to be allowed that freedom.

But I agree with you. “After all is said and done, I'm pretty monogamous and slow...” yeah me too. I'm super romantic. I guess that's kind of obvious. But yeah, I think that stuff is great to explore. Necessary for some I think. like myself. It was necessary. But in the long run... I don't foresee myself in any open marriage situations. Put it that way. I just want the usual stuff. Wife kids a few houses and servants and good travel.

I agree with everything you say in your letter. Of course you handwrote it and I'm sure you didn't make copies of what you wrote so you prob don't remember it, but I agree with everything you said. You were right on. You speak of us metaphorically sitting by the water in a garden spot talking and sharing in a moment in time [I love this image---I picture it in my mind, when we are older actually... older people, great friends, old souls, getting together now and then to catch up and refuel...] and I must say that when I read you it is as if I am reading myself. And I LOVE that. it is a strange thing. to read someone who seems so close in their thoughts and expression that it is as if you are reading yourself. Its just uncanny. Like I said, it is great confirmation! You know? Jules, guess what? We’re not crazy! What a fucking relief.

A few more questions and answers... how do I deal with the preconceptions and expectations of others in my profession... hhhmmm. The other day this girl sends me this journal entry of hers she had written about me... and its pages and pages. And she is going on about how “Fishy has no identity of his own and therefore he is very easy for us to idolize because we can project our own identities onto him....” this is really funny but she thought that the song Caetano off of our new unreleased album was about me---that I wrote it about myself because I was some kind of narcissist or something. and that helped her whole thesis. But that's just because she didn't know who Caetano was. [the brilliant Brasilian singer/songwriter, who has been one of my biggest influences for years.] She was trying to turn me into something...some guy who sings about himself.... and here it is this song about someone I really admire...  trying to box me in... etc... I was thinking, “do I really not have an identity of my own?” but just for a moment and then I just let it go and went on with my day. I guess you just get used to it. you stop worrying about it. Because you get so focused on who you are and what you are doing with your life. just this dead on focus on what is important to you. so everything else rolls off.

When I get letters or emails about what a moron or asshole I am for my political views from the mainstreamers it stings a little... and it gets frightening I guess. And when you walk into a store and all the ladies have this hypnotized sort of drooling look in their eyes and its like they're panting as they're speaking to you and you know that any minute if you don't get out of there that they're going to go crazy and start trying to grab you or whatever... yes this is also very weird and scary, and yet its also fun and cool and good for the part... (I would never write this to anyone but you Juliet... because it is crazy and stupid but a reality sometimes) But again, you just have to stay focused on what you're doing and what you're all about. and like I said, the real things in life, like our family, and our career goals... those are the things that stay prominent in the mind’s eye.) And groupie shagging is not necessarily fun. It is very much the way that you describe your own sexual exploits in your letter. If you're a thinker/feeler, its not much for you. I mean, don't get me wrong, its fun sometimes. But like you said, it can get weird and sad and empty...

The one thing that I thought of tonight to tell you about all of this is that it can make you look at girls in a weird way. the whole looks thing. you have to start looking at girls in a different way. more at their inside. Because after a while you have had so many hot girls, (I fucking can’t believe I am writing this), that hot girls don't do it for you anymore. Like the magic of that goes away. and pretty soon you are looking at girls for what's on the inside. That's what I mean. Because you can be standing somewhere and the hottest girl you’ve ever seen is talking to you, but after like five minutes you're trying to look for someone else in the room that you know so you can get away from her because of her personality.... its just not doing it for you. I notice I get really turned off a lot faster now by that. Whereas when I was a kid I would just grin and bear anything for a hot girl. You know, brains or no brains, or heart or no heart, just because she was hot and she was talking to me. But now I'm jaded in a way. but in a really good way. I still love beautiful women, but it has just changed so much. There is this something deeper, something else, something special, that I look for now.... because the looks don't go that deep.

you know, we’re looking, all of us on this level, we’re looking for something very special in our friends and lovers. It’s a special breed. Something in the heart and in the soul. of course a good brain and hot bod never hurt either. Lol.

But I look at it now like we’re superheroes. People think I was being cheeky when I wrote that song, superhero girl. I wasn't. I was dead on serious. As much as it makes me smile and laugh as I type it. but you know, the other day I was watching something, I think it was that movie troy, and I had this realization that I scribbled down to remember, “She too is looking for greatness.” You know it just made me remember to be the best that I can be. because its not all about us and what we want from someone, but we too have to be great for them as well. whether we’re talking about our life mate, or our children, or our friends, or fans, or employees, or whatever... we have to strive to be great for everyone around us, as well as expecting the same from them.

Anyway, that's a deeper answer to some of your questions. What about you? Talk to me Minnie Driver.

Have I had the perfect kiss? Oh yes. Many. When you are in love, all of those kisses are perfect. Aren't they? Do I still hold hands? Do you think I'm a robot or something? lol. Listen, I only hold hands when I'm in love. Or with a great friend. can’t pretend anymore. I'm not into holding hands with someone that I don't absolutely love. I'm saving that. [men are amazing this way aren't they. They can have sex with a girl that they would never hold hands with or kiss. Funny but true. holding hands is sacred and holy.]

O.k. so you have prompted more writing in me than I ever expected. But I feel a great sense of relief and joy from it. I am sorry it took so long for me to respond to you but it needed to sit for a while. Steep. Brew. Cure. Age. Haha. and here we are at the end of it. you went all out writing to me and I appreciated it so very much. A true friendship and bond was created in that...

Juliet you mention you're not having written an installment of the great American novel yet because you are still gathering material, but I encourage you to discreate that idea. From an objective point of view you have lived many lives already and you are a brilliant writer. And I mean that in all sincerity. Not just because I want to marry you one day and live off of your wealth! LOLOLOL. But seriously, you have this way with words, (when you aren't trying---I can tell when you are trying by the way—so watch for that) it is very natural and wonderful to read you. It is so heartfelt and yet at the same time, so intelligent and perceptive and insightful. Please do yourself a favor and immediately STOP handwriting from now on. It is a sincere waste of time. and it is making double work for yourself. I learned this long ago. learn to write as elegantly and deeply and purely into a machine as you find yourself able to by hand. You will thank yourself for it later.

[Also, on money. you had said something to me to the degree that ‘me and money haven't come to terms yet, or... we haven't totally made friends yet’ or something. can I just say dearest Juliet  that I spent a lot of time processing money so we could make friends. Because I felt the same way you do about it. not sure how to feel about it.... A lot of people do. its easy to get hung up on money in our society. In any society. So its important to get clear on how we really feel about money (what our beliefs are) and then to discreate the ones that aren't serving us. because quite frankly I've been poor, and I've been middle class, and I've been rich; (haven't been wealthy yet, but I'm working on it), and baby there is nothing better than being rich. I just made myself laugh so hard! But seriously, its true. its really wonderful. And once you clear away a lot of the crap that starts to collect about money in our heads then it gets easy to make it and to like having it. you know, its so easy to hate money because of everything we see out there growing up about people with money. a lot of assholes out there. but that doesn’t mean we have to be assholes. Just now when I thought about it, I realized that money does kind of make us an asshole to a certain degree. It can happen to the best of us. I admit it. being poor breeds a certain humility by obligation that one can immediately dispel with when one obtains a certain amount of cash in bank. But its sure more fun being a rich asshole than a poor angel! LOLOLOLOL. But for the ultimate access, as you describe it... its only there for those with money. so where are you with it? Ready to make friends? How close are you to becoming a full on capitalist? I forget the term for what we are called.... there is a term for it out there in the “movement”, responsible capitalist, or fair capitalist... something like that. But it’s a good thing.

Well it looks as though we have reached the end of this ridiculously long collection of bizarre thoughts and irrelevant musings. Thank you for reading and writing as always. In a very short time you have become one of the closest companions in my thoughts. Hope all is well and stays well until we speak again.

All my love and support,
Your friend,
Fishy